


Shoes to Fill

by rushie



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas, Dead Parents, remus lupin - Freeform, talking about death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 12:56:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5540870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rushie/pseuds/rushie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Harry," Teddy began as he and his godfather washed and dried dishes after Christmas dinner, "can you tell me about my father?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shoes to Fill

 "Harry," Teddy began as he and his godfather washed and dried dishes after Christmas dinner, "can you tell me about my father?"

Harry hesitated, his arms plunged up to his elbows in warm water and suds. Teddy was thirteen, and it was a question he had asked Harry often, but there was something different about it this time. There was a set to Teddy's shoulders and a look in his eye that Harry hadn't seen before; it wasn't the bravado of a boy playacting at being a man. Teddy was asking--really _asking_ \--about Remus for the first time. Harry had talked about Remus before--that he had been his favorite professor at Hogwarts, the best the school had ever seen; that he had been his father's best friend; that he had wished for the best life for Teddy; that he would be proud of him. Harry wasn't sure what Andromeda had told him, but he had seen the woman's tired eyes too many times to know that she didn't have it in her to talk at length about Teddy's parents or his grandfather. Harry understood the feeling.

Harry washed a plate slowly, turning the words over in his mind. He had never been good at this sort of thing, at knowing what to say. Hermione was better for this, but she and Ron had already come and gone. Ginny would know, too, he thought; he could hear her playing with the children in the living room. But Ginny hadn't known Remus like Harry had, and Harry knew that this was a question Teddy wanted _him_  to answer. Suddenly, painfully, he wished for Sirius. Sirius would have the perfect thing to say.

"Do you want to go see them?" he asked finally.

Teddy's eyes widened for a moment in surprise, but then he nodded, slowly. "Yes," he said. "Can we?"

"I'm sure Ginny won't mind," Harry said. He rinsed the suds from the sink and dried his hands. "I'll tell her where we're going."

Remus and Tonks were not buried in Godric's Hollow like Lily and James, but Harry still felt a twinge of familiarity as he and Teddy picked their way through the graveyard. Snow fell politely, catching on their coats and in their hair, and they didn't talk as Harry led the way to the double grave. It wasn't so much that Harry didn't know what to say, although that was part of it. However, it was more that Harry understood what it was to be young and to stand in front of your parents' graves. Teddy had been here before, of course, but it had been more of a ritual thing--putting flowers on the grave on the anniversary of their deaths, Andromeda standing solemn guard beside him. This was something else. This was just visiting. Harry had not much wanted to talk to anyone when he stood in front of Lily and James's graves all those years ago, and he had been glad for Hermione's company. He tried to extend Teddy the same courtesy.

Someone had laid a poinsettia wreath over the grave, bright and red and beautiful against the stark whiteness of the snow. Harry wondered who might have left it and wished he had learned more about Remus before he had died. 

"What was he like?" Teddy asked again.

Harry thought. He didn't wonder at Teddy asking after Remus. Tonks was always easier to talk about--she was bright and lovely, clumsy and energetic, the sort of person you always wanted to be around, the sort of person who always made you happy. But Remus had been a different sort of soul, the kind that was harder to describe unless you had experienced it for yourself. Harry didn't know that he could do it justice.

He tried anyway.

"He was..." He hesitated. "He was the sort of man that you think you'll only read about. Kind, understanding, patient... He saw the best in all of us, knew how to get to the heart of who we were. I think he underestimated himself," he said, with sudden realization. "He blamed himself for--a lot of things, things that were never his fault." 

"Grandmother says," Teddy said quietly, "that he would always put himself last, put everyone else before himself, even when he needed it."

Teddy was clearly trying to sound calm, but his voice was raw. Harry made a convulsive movement, as if to grasp his shoulder, and then stopped. A laugh nearly wormed its way up from his stomach as he recalled Remus making the same gesture many years ago, in an empty classroom as they practiced the Patronus Charm.

He swallowed hard.

"Yes," he agreed. "She's right. He was the sort of man who--you'd look right past him, and he would let you, because he never thought he was worthy of that sort of attention. But once you _did_  see him, you knew he was someone special." He paused. "I wish I knew more about him, Teddy. I'm sorry."

"No," Teddy said quietly. "It's all right. I've heard the stories about him, from when he was at school. I'm not tired of hearing them, but..."

Harry smiled a little, wryly. "But that's not what you were looking for."

"No." Teddy looked at him then, snow collecting on the collar of his jacket. Even though he was young and his hair was electric blue, Harry thought he looked remarkably like Remus in that moment.

There were bags under his eyes--not the deep, bruiselike sort Harry had sometimes seen on Remus, but the sort born of a tiredness that ran deeper than lack of sleep. And then Teddy smiled, and Harry thought he looked more like Remus than ever, and he wondered if Teddy were feeling what Harry had been feeling that night when he had stood in Godric's Hollow on Christmas. He wondered if some part of Teddy wished that he were there with his parents, buried under the snow, just to know what it was like to be close to then.

"It sounds like I have big shoes to fill," Teddy commented after they had stood there in silence for a few minutes.

Harry looked at him, and Teddy was looking resolutely at the headstone, jaw clenched. "He would be proud of you," he said quietly.

"How do you know?" The question wasn't rude, merely curious. There was a longing hint to it that suggested that this was something Teddy wanted to be sure of more than anything--that his parents would be proud of him, that he was doing right by their memory.

Harry looked away. He had never been good at pathos, and it was easier to say this without having to look at Teddy's face. He shrugged, snow falling from his shoulders, and said simply, "Because I am."

Teddy didn't speak again, and he didn't ask any more questions, but there was a lightness to his expression when they left that told Harry he had said the right thing. He and Teddy both pressed a hand, solemnly, to the top of the headstone, and Harry swallowed against a lump in his throat as he drew his hand away. "He'll know you both," he'd promised on the day of the funeral, when he had stood alone in front of the headstone, the summer sun hot on his back. "He'll always know he is your son." He hoped he had lived up to his promise.

"Thank you," Teddy said, when he and Harry had stepped away from the headstone.

Harry merely smiled. He gestured ahead of him, and he let Teddy lead the way. Together, they walked through the silent graveyard in the falling snow and made their way back home.


End file.
